RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)


    • Learning the Bitter Lesson in 2026

      Source: EconLog
      by Joy Buchanan

      “Sutton draws from decades of AI history to argue that researchers have learned a ‘bitter’ truth. Researchers repeatedly assume that computers will make the next advance in intelligence by relying on specialized human expertise. Recent history shows that methods that scale with computation outperform those reliant on human expertise. For example, in computer chess, brute-force search on specialized hardware triumphed over knowledge-based approaches. Sutton warns that researchers resist learning this lesson because building in knowledge feels satisfying, but true breakthroughs come from computation’s relentless scaling. … The Bitter Lesson is less about any single algorithm than about intellectual humility: progress in AI has come from accepting that general-purpose learning, persistently scaled, outperforms our best attempts to hard-code intelligence.” (02/17/26)

      https://www.econlib.org/econlog/learning-the-bitter-lesson-in-2026

    • Further US intervention in Haiti would be worst Trump move of all

      Source: Responsible Statecraft
      by Leah Schroeder

      “Washington sent warships this month to deploy ‘gunboat diplomacy’ while the island nation continues its freefall of violence and corruption.” (02/17/26)

      https://responsiblestatecraft.org/haiti-us-intervention/

    • Weird scenes inside the gold mine

      Source: Cobden Centre
      by Tim Price

      “We don’t usually comment on day-to-day price developments as a) our interpretation of events may well be wrong, and b) by the time we’ve shared them with readers, the markets have moved on in any case. But the magnitude of the moves in the prices of gold and silver on 30th January warrant some further analysis. The financial media were quick to report, firstly, the apparent end to the precious metals ‘bubble’ and, secondly, to blame the new nominee for Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, for its climactic explosion. Well, as the noted law enforcer ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan once opined, opinions are like assholes — everybody’s got one.” (02/17/26)

      https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/02/weird-scenes-inside-the-gold-mine-2/

    • ICE Is Freezing Out the Constitution

      Source: Libertarian Institute
      by RT Hadley

      “Mass deportations poll well, in part because many Americans believe immigrants should ‘get in line’ and follow the law. However, the core issue isn’t a nation’s right to enforce its borders. When people are willing to overlook constitutional violations to ‘solve the problem,’ they reveal a deeper disregard for the principles of liberty and individual rights that define America. If we abandon those first principles in moments of fear or frustration, we have to ask whether we still deserve to call ourselves a free society. Regardless of one’s views on immigration levels or deportation policy, constitutional rights cannot be suspended to achieve policy ends. The Constitution applies to everyone within U.S. borders—citizen and non‑citizen alike.” (02/17/26)

      https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/ice-is-freezing-out-the-constitution/

    • Free to Advise

      Source: Common Sense
      by Paul Jacob

      “People should be free to talk to each other about whatever they want as long as they’re not thereby conspiring to rob and murder and so forth. They should even be able to give advice. Including legal advice. New York State disagrees. The Institute for Justice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let the non-lawyer volunteers of a company called Upsolve keep giving advice to people facing lawsuits to collect debt.” (02/17/26)

      https://thisiscommonsense.org/free2advise/

    • Is Protectionism for National Security Absurd?

      Source: Pierre Lemieux
      by Pierre Lemieux

      “Consider the case of the businesses begging for protective tariffs to compensate for other tariffs imposed on them by the same government.” (02/16/26)

      https://pierrelemieux.substack.com/p/is-protectionism-for-national-security

    • The Unbearable Intellectual Lightness of the Postliberal Being

      Source: The UnPopulist
      by Andrew Koppelman

      “Hierarchical structures within religion are largely acceptable to liberalism so long as they are based on consent rather than coercion. Hierarchy must be justified, but consent suffices to justify. Shifting our focus from theory to practice, American law has never questioned the right of the Catholic Church to confine the priesthood to males, or to impose on the priesthood difficult demands such as celibacy, or to condemn as immoral homosexual sex and contraception. Liberals often harshly denounce and stigmatize these ideas, putting painful social pressure on those who hold them, but the postliberals claim more than this: outright coercion and censorship. Liberals believe in free speech, even for ideas we don’t like.” (02/16/26)

      https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-unbearable-intellectual-lightness

    • The Epstein Files: The Blackmail of Billionaire Leon Black and Epstein’s Role in It

      Source: Glenn Greenwald
      by Glenn Greenwald

      “One of the towering questions hovering over the Epstein saga was whether the illicit sexual activities of the world’s most powerful people were used as blackmail by Epstein or by intelligence agencies with whom (or for whom) he worked. The Trump administration now insists that no such blackmail occurred. … There are still many files that remain heavily and inexplicably redacted. But, from the files that have been made public, we know one thing for certain. One of Epstein’s two key benefactors — the hedge fund billionaire Leon Black, who paid Epstein at least $158 million from 2012 through 2017 — was aggressively blackmailed over his sexual conduct. ” (02/16/26)

      https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-epstein-files-the-blackmail-of

    • Insider Trading and the Wolves of Capitol Hill

      Source: Independent Institute
      by Craig Eyermann

      “2025 was a good year for the stock market. Americans who invested in a broad market index like the Standard and Poor 500 did really well. But not as well as 29 members of the U.S. Congress who beat the market in 2025. Beating the market is not easy and beating an index like the S&P 500 in 2025 means getting gains of more than 16.8%. Unusual Whales compiled a report on the members of Congress whose investments beat that return in 2025. I compiled the chart below from the report to focus on the 29 members of Congress whose investment portfolios grew by more than 16.8% last year.” (02/16/26)

      https://www.independent.org/article/2026/02/16/congress-beat-stock-market-2025/

    • Looking back on “Presidents’ Day”

      Source: The Price of Liberty
      by Nathan Barton

      “The history of ‘President’s Day’ is a convoluted one. (Isn’t everything with government?) Legally, for the FedGov, it is officially still ‘Washington’s Birthday’ and just the calendar date was changed back in 1971, from 22 February to the third Monday in February. (Many States have officially changed the name; the common title reflects the popular belief that it also replaced any celebration of Honest Abe’s birthday (12 February) honored ‘all POTUS.’ Yup, even Nixon.) But since most of us treat this like ‘All Presidents’ Day’ (and absolutely nothing to do with the idea behind All Saints’ Day), let us look back at one of the few POTUS that has some really good things to say about him. Thomas Jefferson.” (02/16/26)

      https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/02/16/looking-back-on-presidents-day/